American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionists

Provenance:

The Artist.

Estate of the Artist, 1925.

Emma S. Bellows, the Artist's wife.

Estate of Emma S. Bellows, 1959.

H. V. Allison & Co., New York, New York.

Daniel Leshner, Tahoe Vista, California.

Chapellier Galleries, New York, New York.

R. H. Love Galleries, Chicago, Illinois, July 1980.

Acquired directly from the above.

Private Collection, Illinois.

Literature:

The Artist's Record Book C, p. 22.

Accessible on the Artist's online Catalogue Raisonné at https://www.hvallison.com/, compiled and organized by Glenn C. Peck.

Lot Note:

In the twilight of his career, Bellows underwent a noticeable evolution of style and subject matter, transitioning from dynamic representations of urban life and sporting events to an exploration of the landscape. Risley's Pig House depicts the environs of Woodstock, New York, where Bellows spent part of every year from 1920-1924 and where, according to art historian, Bruce Weber, the artist found a perfect complement of “nature and neighborhood.”

Executed in 1924, the present lot is an unsentimental study in vernacular architecture. The composition is anchored by a tightly clustered group of farm buildings, dominated by the striking, rust-red central house and the dark, imposing mass of a barn to the left. The vermilion of the central structure–the titular pig house–is offset by the cool, metallic blue-green of its corrugated roofing. This juxtaposition and the work's palette align Bellows with the exuberance of Fauve and Expressionist-inspired modernists, whose work he would have encountered as co-organizer of the landmark 1913 Armory Show.

The strength of Risley's Pig House is rooted in its unrestrained, assertive brushwork. The angular wooden fencing of the pigpen provides strong diagonals that direct the viewer’s eye into the picture space, establishing a sense of enclosure and emphasizing practical, utilitarian geometry. The right foreground is particularly animated, built up with thick, gestural strokes of earthy brown and gray impasto, suggesting the texture of the mud and overall “mood” of the yard. Bellows's approach is one of immediacy and, indeed, of modernity, elevating the site–a humble farmscape–to a well-orchestrated collision of light, color, and form.